I have continued to read “Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids,” by Chris Biffle.  Actually, I am rereading as I have been meeting with a couple of colleagues who are also excited about implementing the WBT strategies.  I tend to rush through my reading when I get excited about the content.  So, with my friends, I am going back through and taking notes this time.

WBT has a lot of visual cues for students  and a set that I that I am definitely putting on my bulletin board are the cues for solving math problems.  As I will be the math teacher for all my school’s fifth graders, I was instantly on point! The titles of the cues are: *Prove It!   *Show Work  *Doofus/Trickster/Smarty  *Double Underlining   *Headings The two cues new to me were  Headings and Doofus/Trickster/Smarty.  “Headings” is a process of 5 steps that students work their way through to solve the math problem.

 My favorite, though, is Doofus, Trickster, and Smarty!  Students are taught to sort multiple choice answers into those 3 categories.  The names made me laugh and I know my students will get a kick out of them, too. Doofus answers are those answers that are so obviously wrong and easy to spot.  Tricksters are a step up from Doofus and can be harder to spot.  They are designed to fool students and are completely wrong.  The Smarty answer is the correct answer.   Once students label the anwers, they then must be able to prove their choice is correct. I knew I would want my own version of the cues, so I got busy yesterday and made a set.  Here’s how they turned out.  If you want a set, they are at my TpT store.  Just click on my TpT link and download them…FREE!